Pre-Boot Telemetry Orchestration for Zero-Trust Access Validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In a zero-trust computing environment, the inability to configure and transmit accurate telemetry during pre-boot intervals hinders continuous validation of access to protected resources, leading to potential security vulnerabilities.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of pre-boot telemetry orchestrator in IHSs that retrieves a resource locator, establishes an encrypted session with a policy decision point, and collects and transmits telemetry during pre-boot intervals, utilizing a trust chain to validate hardware components and adapt telemetry collection based on current operating conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If pre-boot telemetry collection is implemented, then continuous validation of access to protected resources is enabled, but system complexity increases due to additional pre-boot configuration requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by establishing encrypted sessions and collecting telemetry data during pre-boot intervals before the operating system loads. The pre-boot telemetry orchestrator retrieves resource locators, establishes secure connections with policy decision points, and collects hardware telemetry data in advance, ensuring security validation occurs before full system initialization.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses an intermediary approach by introducing a pre-boot telemetry orchestrator that acts as a mediator between hardware components and the zero-trust policy decision point. This orchestrator manages the complex pre-boot telemetry collection process, establishing encrypted sessions and transmitting telemetry data without requiring direct complex interactions between individual hardware components and security policies.
2Reliability
If encrypted sessions are established with policy decision points during pre-boot, then security is enhanced, but communication overhead and time consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The encrypted session establishment and telemetry collection occur during the pre-boot interval, performing security validations beforehand. This preliminary action ensures that when the operating system loads, the security context is already established, preventing security checks from delaying operational processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent rushes through critical security validations during the pre-boot phase by establishing encrypted sessions and collecting essential telemetry data before the operating system loads. The pre-boot telemetry orchestrator quickly retrieves resource locators, establishes secure connections, and transmits telemetry data to policy decision points, completing security validations in advance to minimize impact on operational time.
3Reliability
If telemetry is collected without booting the operating system, then security validation occurs earlier, but the scope of telemetry data available is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments telemetry collection into distinct phases: pre-boot hardware-level telemetry collected by the pre-boot telemetry orchestrator before OS loading, and post-boot software-level telemetry collected after OS loading. This segmentation allows early security validation using hardware telemetry while preserving the option to collect additional software telemetry later, preventing information loss rather than limiting it.
Solution Approach 2:
The pre-boot telemetry collection performs preliminary security validation using hardware-level telemetry data available before OS loading. The pre-boot telemetry orchestrator collects essential hardware telemetry and transmits it to policy decision points for early validation. This preliminary action does not prevent subsequent collection of more comprehensive telemetry data after the OS loads, maintaining full information availability while enabling early security decisions.
Data Source
AI summary
Information Handling Systems (IHSs) support pre-boot telemetry for use in a zero-trust environment. A pre-boot telemetry orchestrator of the IHS retrieves a factory-provisioned resource locator of a service that provides a location of a policy decision point of the zero-trust environment. The pre-boot telemetry orchestrator establishes an encrypted session with the policy decision point that is located using the factory-provisioned resource locator. Via the encrypted session, the pre-boot telemetry orchestrator receives a telemetry definition specifying pre-boot telemetry to be collected by the IHS. The telemetry is collected and transmitted during the pre-boot intervals according to the telemetry definition.